Collaborative Research: Interacting disturbances: leaf to landscape dynamics of emerging disease, fire, and drought in California coastal forests

在过去的十年里，加州和俄勒冈州森林中的数百万棵树木受到了一种外来病原体的侵袭，这种病原体是一种名为橡树猝死症的传染性森林疾病的病原体。这种破坏性的爆发发生在红杉和橡树林地社区，这些社区最近也经历了毁灭性的野火和极端干旱。这项研究将使用分子，温室，现场和计算建模技术的新组合，以了解野火，干旱和传染病如何相互作用和影响森林生态系统。预计结果将阐明野火如何影响入侵病原体的持久性和传播，生物多样性如何影响受干扰与未受干扰的植物群落中疾病的出现，以及这些相互作用的干扰如何改变森林生态系统中的营养循环。对传染病、野火和干旱生态学的综合研究将有助于为世界各地越来越多的受到复杂、相互作用的干扰影响的森林景观制定最佳管理做法。将通过两个非常有效的组织-加州大学合作推广和加州橡树死亡率工作队-对利益攸关方进行外联。调查人员还将积极参与为州、联邦和国际监管委员会提供咨询，以制定管理橡树猝死和其他森林疾病的政策。

Over the past decade, millions of trees in California and Oregon forests have been attacked by an exotic pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum, causal agent of the infectious forest disease known as sudden oak death. This destructive outbreak is occurring in redwood and oak woodland communities in the same places that have also recently experienced devastating wildfires and extreme droughts. This research will use a novel combination of molecular, greenhouse, field, and computational modeling techniques to understand how disturbances created by wildfire, drought, and infectious disease interact and impact forest ecosystems. Results are expected to illuminate how wildfire affects the persistence and spread of an invasive pathogen, how biodiversity impacts emergence of disease in disturbed vs. undisturbed plant communities, and how these interacting disturbances alter nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. The combined research on the ecology of infectious disease, wildfire and drought will help develop best management practices for the growing number of forested landscapes around the world that are being impacted by complex, interacting disturbances. Outreach to stakeholders will be implemented through two highly effective organizations - University of California Cooperative Extension and the California Oak Mortality Task Force. The investigators will also be actively involved with advising state, federal and International regulatory committees put in place to create policy for managing sudden oak death and other forest diseases.